Samsung Warns of Widespread Chip Shortages

“There’s going to be issues around semiconductor supplies, and it’s going to affect everyone,” Wonjin Lee, the company’s president and head of global marketing, said in an interview in Bloomberg on Tuesday (Jan. 7). “Prices are going up even as we speak. Obviously, we don’t want to convey that burden to the consumers, but we’re going to be at a point where we have to actually consider repricing our products.”

The report notes that Samsung—despite its vast electronics portfolio—is nonetheless subject to the skyrocketing costs of the chips used to power devices ranging from smartphones and laptops to home appliances and self-driving cars.

Lee spoke with Bloomberg at the CES electronics showcase in Las Vegas, where Samsung—like many consumer-facing companies at the event—was touting its interconnected and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered products, while also facing increasing production costs.

As the Bloomberg report notes, the boom in AI data center construction has led to record demand for high-bandwidth memory, helping lift Samsung’s stock price while also tightening supplies for other uses.

Lee told the news outlet he sees the company outpacing the wider market, as Samsung—unlike some of its rivals—can manufacture memory for its own products.

“We’re more optimistic about the outlook of 2026 than what we have experienced last year,” he said. “Mobile phones, with the emergence of AI, I think people are looking at upgrading their products to be able to leverage the new technologies.”

In a separate report interview this week, Samsung’s new co-CEO said the company aims to double the number of its devices outfitted with “Galaxy AI” to gain an edge over competitors.

As of last year, the company had included AI features backed by Google’s Gemini on about 400 million smartphones and tablets, and wants to increase that number to 800 million this year.

“We will apply AI to all products, all functions, and all services as quickly as possible,” T.M. Roh told Reuters, in his first interview since taking on the co-chief executive role in November.

In other CES news, PYMNTS wrote Tuesday (Jan. 6) about how this year’s edition of the show is spotlighting changes in the consumerization of the B2B space, where “the tides of innovation appear to be heading upstream, or at least embracing a two-way street.”